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COMRADE  DANIEL  LICHTY,  ML  D. 


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LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign 


http://www.archive.org/details/abrahamlincolncoOOIich 


&tiraimm  Htncoln 

A  Comrade's  tribute  to  his  Comrade  Commander- 
in-Chief  in  the  war  between  the  States  called  the 

Cibil  OTiar 

for  the  preservation  of  The  Union  and  the  free- 
dom of  all  its  people. 

1861  to  1865,  fl.  B. 


by 


Comrade  Daniel  Lichty,  M.  D. 

Past  Surgeon-Major  G.  L.  Nevins  Post  No.   1,  G.   A.  R. 
Soldiers'    and    Sailors'    Memorial    Hall 

Rockford,  Illinois,  U.  S.  A. 


J*        A 


Second  printing  November,  1925. 


A  PERFECT  CREED 

ITH  Malice  toward  None,  with 
Charity  for  All,  with  Firmness 
in  the  Right,  as  God  gives  Us 
to  see  the  Right,  let  Us  Strive  on  to 
Finish  the  Work  we  are  in,  to  Bind  up 
the  Nations  Wounds,  to  Care  for  Him 
who  shall  have  Borne  the  Battle,  and 
for  His  Widow  and  Orphans ;  to  do  All 
which  may  Achieve  and  Cherish  a 
Just  and  Lasting  Peace  Among  Our- 
selves and  With  all  Nations. 

A.  Lincoln 


T  IS  seriously  felt  on  a  theme  and  occasion  like  this — as  Lincoln 
himself  once  beautifully  and  graphically  said  when  asked  to  speak 
in  eulogy  of  Washington:  "To  add  brightness  to  the  sun,  or  glory 
to  the  name  of  Washington  is  alike  impossible;  let  none  attempt  it;  in 
solemn  awe  pronounce  the  name  and  in  its  naked,  deathless  splendor  leave 
it  shining  on."  So  one  feels  whose  tutelage  and  service  were  under  Lincoln 
and  during  Lincoln's  time  in  the  Nation's  struggle  to  test  whether  a  Nation 
conceived  in  liberty  should  survive  or  perish,  whose  study  of  this  marvelous 
character  is  lost  in  more  and  more  deserving  and  admiring  wonderment,  and 
rests  on  in  proud  patriotic  and  enduring  devotion.  So  failing  to  portray  a 
character  like  this  need  not  humiliate  but  rather  lend  to  satisfaction  if  not 
praise  and  maybe  comfort. 

The  unending  procession  of  events  and  persons  that  has  passed  since 
the  founding  of  our  form  of  government  has  been  so  varied  by  time, 
custom,  struggle  and  teaching  that  the  model  statesman  has  been  rare  and 
difficult  to  choose.  Certain  ideals  which  we  genetically  cherished  fortu- 
nately arose  from  the  union  of  the  foreign  and  native  population  with 
which  our  land  was  filled;  one  ideal,  one  model  after  another  has  arisen 
and  again  as  readily  disappeared  from  prominence  in  the  procession;  relent' 
less  Time  moved  on;  men  rose  and  fell  like  bubbles  after  ram;  out  of  the 
storm  and  the  rain  came  the  bud,  the  sturdy  stalk,  the  full  vine,  the  giant 
oak  whose  broad  expanding  arms  embraced  the  blasts  and  grew  on,  and 
deeply  rooted,  defied  assault  and  destruction;  storm -beaten  in  infancy  and 
again  in  adolescence,  cyclone  swept  in  1861  to  1865,  it  emerged  a  perennial 
and  eternal  forest  capable  of  withstanding  avalanche,  sea-swell  and 
cataclysm. 

Rock-rooted,  sun-kissed,  wind-swept,  blizzard-blown  and  winter-frozen, 
has  grown  up  this  initial  government  we  cherish  and  the  world  recognizes 
exclusively,  as  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA.  North  of  the 
Great  Lakes  and  the  St.  Lawrence  River,  there  will  be  no  United  States  of 
America;  south  of  the  Rio  Grande  to  Popocatepetl  can  be  only  a  confed- 
eracy, while  from  Tehuantepec  to  Panama  the  coalition  of  communities 
can  never  expect  to  rival  or  anticipate  our  title;  the  International   Postal 


Union  has  officially  recognized  only  our  Union,  U.  S.  A.,  and  denied  this 
name  or  title  to  any  other  aspiring  aggregation  of  States  in  the  world. 

On  a  calm  sea  it  is  easy  sailing;  with  the  current  any  bark,  even  a  chip 
can  float;  but  we  have  had  troublous  times  in  our  history;  the  experiment 
whether  a  government  "of  the  people  and  by  the  people  and  for  the 
people11  should  survive  or  perish  from  off  the  earth,  was  not  to  be  made 
without  test  or  tribulation. 

This  republic  had  to  build  a  basic  constitution  fitted  to  its  needs  and 
to  new  environment  and  high  ambitions  without  a  model  and  without  a 
guide;  how  well  this  was  done,  the  regard  in  which  this  instrument  is 
held  by  present  civil  courts,  and  domestic  and  foreign  nations,  our  defense, 
cohesion,  growth,  integrity  and  stability  in  national  equity  and  comity  and 
the  general  regard  held  in  international  affairs  and  their  legal  and  amicable 
adjustment,  all   attest. 

When  in  1861  to  1865  the  great  test  was  thrust  upon  us,  when  the 
virulent  conflict  was  transferred  from  the  fervid  forum  to  the  sanguine 
battlefield,  when  the  shot  that  was  fired  on  Fort  Sumpter  that  was  heard 
around  the  world,  the  world  was  aroused,  and  looked  on  with  mingled  ques- 
tionings and  suspicions,  and  we  might  say  of  some  with  sinister  greed  and 
satisfaction,  "whether  a  nation  conceived  in  liberty  and  dedicated  to  the 
proposition  that  all  men  were  created  equal,11  should  survive  or  not;  God  in 
His  wisdom  had  already  prepared  the  Moses  who  was  to  lead  the  Nation  to 
its  pinnacle  of  safety  and  glory.  To  make  the  illustration  comparative  and 
impressive,  let  us  liken  the  Preserver  of  the  union  unlike  its  Founder,  unto 
the  Savior  of  mankind  in  this,  that  the  former  was  of  very  lowly  origin;  if 
some  artist'genius  should  arise  duly  inspired  to  paint  in  words  or  pigment 
the  birthplace  of  Abraham  Lincoln  it  would  be  far  more  scant  and  lowly 
than  the  stable  and  the  manger  in  Bethlehem.  Abraham  Lincoln  was  born 
unsheltered;  lie  lived  his  life  in  the  open,  from  birth  to  death  before  all  the 
world,  and  died  equally  in  the  open  trusting  all  and  fearing  none,  of  a  vile 
assassin's  traitorous  hand  in  the  public  arena  where  awe  and  splendor  had 
met  to  do  him  homage  at  the  radiant  atrium  of  peace. 


The  biologic  law  through  development  and  succession  from  lower  to 
higher  forms  both  physical  and  psychical  is  organic;  so  in  human  ethics 
and  ethnics,  else  progress  in  civilization  would  be  stopped  in  the  jungle; 
somewhere  in  the  cosmic  past  in  some  highly  developed  nucleus  of  ante- 
cedent protoplasm,  a  molecule  must  have  held  a  latent  germ  of  wonder  and 
patriotic  genius.  Abraham  Lincoln's  parents  were  the  repository  and 
medium  of  its  transmission;  whether  this  inhibition  and  accretion  of 
organism  was  within  the  sojourn  of  their  young  virile  lives  while  in  the 
freedom  and  ambient  air  of  the  early  earnest  Quaker  and  Mennonites  of 
Pennsylvania  in  1688,  who  were  declaimers  of  freedom,  and  exhorters 
against  slavery,  of  whom  Whittier  wrote, 

"Who  first  of  all  their  testimonial  gave, 
Against  the  oppressor  for  the  outcast  slave," 

is  a  geneticist's  problem.  Thus  Abraham  Lincoln's  basal  hatred  of  slavery 
may  have  been  acquired  in  the  same  atmosphere  that  John  Burns  and 
Barbara  Fritsche  received  their  famed  declarations  of  freedom. 

Natural  laws  are  immutable;  by  a  still  higher  law,  beyond  human  ken 
arose  the  perfect  man,  the  Savior  of  mankind;  by  this  same  law  developed 
in  the  hills  of  Kentucky  and  the  plains  of  Illinois  the  Savior  of  our  Nation; 
in  stature  a  giant,  in  humanity,  humility  and  gentleness  a  woman:  in  un- 
fathomed  intellect  the  potential  of  a  god;  rough  hewn  it  is  true,  but  of 
such  are  made  the  pillars  and  temples  of  modern  law  and  human  govern- 
ment;  in  no  instance  is  this  more  marked  than  in  the  ideal  man  and  states- 
man that  grew  out  of  Abraham  Lincoln;  this  may  have  been  an  atavism  of 
a  noble  generation  passed,  of  an  absorption  of  environment  or  the  resistless 
natural  pulsings  of  a  new  Nation  to  prove  the  impending  and  present 
dynamics  of  a  young  nation's  blood.  As  a  statesman  he  probably  appre- 
ciated more  than  many  or  any  did  before  and  after  him,  the  full  purpose 
and  meaning  of  his  responsibilities  as  a  citizen  and  officer.  Always 
a  student,  he  early  grasped  the  fundamentals  of  organic  government 
as  few  had  ever  done;  his  ethics  were  taken  from  the  tablets  of 
Mount  Sinai,  his  English  from  Shakespeare  and  the  Bible,  and  his  great 
common-sense    from    the    knock-about    world    into    which    he    was    born 


and  in  which  he  battled  from  earliest  childhood,  through  a  rather  vigorous 
adolescence  to  that  maturity  where  he  won  the  merited  plaudits  of  his 
fellow-countrymen  in  national  convention  by  his  nomination,  and  later  the 
gift  of  an  election  to  the  presidency  of  the  United  States.  This  election 
was  the  winning  of  his  own  forceful  ideas  based  on  the  assertion  of  an 
adaptation  of  scripture  to  existing  politics,  that  "a  house  divided  against 
itself  cannot  stand,"  that  a  country  could  not  exist  half  free  and  half  slave; 
an  idea  that  his  colleagues  in  politics  urged  him  to  relinquish  as  it  would 
lead  to  his  sure  defeat;  but  he  never  wavered  in  this  conviction  because  he 
knew  it  was  an  organic  one:  that  human  slavery  was  wrong,  contrary  to 
the  laws  of  human  rights  and  human  progress  it  was  invasive  of  the 
dominant  thought  of  that  day  and  time,  but  it  was  right  to  him  if  not 
politic;  his  wonderful  and  unerring  foresight  told  him  he  was  right,  and 
he  led  grandly  and  alone  and  won,  and  still  awaits  the  rightful  recognition 
and  initiative  his  attitude  then  attested  and  now  and  forever  deserves;  he 
kept  before  him  the  beacon  of  the  constitution  of  his  government  and  the 
ever-appealing  and  persuading  pleading  against  human  slavery;  the  one  he 
.well  knew  must  be  his  bulwark  of  safety  in  conduct  of  national  affairs  as 
well  as  of  international;  the  other  he  knew  would  be  irresistible  pleading 
at  the  great  bar  of  common  humanity  in  all  the  civilized  world;  further  than 
this  he  believed  in  the  aggregate  wisdom  as  well  as  in  the  sympathy  of 
these  common  people;  he  put  this  so  graphically  that  it  has  become 
axiomatic,  that  "you  can  fool  some  of  the  people  some  of  the  time,  you 
can  fool  part  of  the  people  part  of  the  time,  but  you  cannot  fool  all  the 
people  all  the  time";  also  in  another  expression  attributed  to  him,  that  "the 
Lord  must  have  loved  the  common  people,  else  why  did  he  make  so  many 
of  them?" 

Profoundly  and  reverently  he  recognized  the  ever  presence  and 
dominance  of  a  Divine  leader  in  all  the  affairs  of  men  and  state,  that  he 
never  forgot  his  fealty  thereto;  so  without  precedent  or  suggestion,  in  his 
brief  letter  to  the  committee,  of  acknowledgment  and  acceptance  of  the 
nomination  for  President  by  the  Republican  party,  1860,  he  begins  his 
letter  of  acceptance  by  sincerely  imploring  Divine  aid,  and  repeats  the 
pleadings  to  his  neighbors  at  Springfield  when  about  to  take  his  leave  for 


his  duties  as  president  of  a  distracted,  convulsed,  and  already  disrupted 
country,  when  he  earnestly  asked  his  assembled  fellow-citizens  to  pray  for 
him,  declaring  that  with  their  prayers  he  could  accomplish  wonders  but 
without  them  he  must  ignobly  fail;  on  his  perilous  way  to  Washington,  in 
Philadelphia  he  asks  the  same  divine  supplemental  aid;  by  this,  he  addition- 
ally gave  evidence  of  his  profound  belief  in  a  divine  plan  and  a  Supreme 
Ruler,  and  thus  assured  his  courageous  future.  At  his  first  inaugural,  never 
a  President  more  reverently  took  his  oath  of  office  and  kissed  his  Bible  more 
sincerely  than  did  Abraham  Lincoln;  in  his  inaugural  address  he  repeats 
his  fealty  to  the  faith  of  his  fathers  and  again  appeals  for  Divine  guidance. 
These  contemplations  of  character  alone,  bespeak  for  him  a  much  larger 
estimate  than  is  usually  accorded  him;  he  knew  that  God's  creatures  were 
led  by  their  Creator;  so  with  one  hand  twined  about  the  common  people 
and  the  other  in  the  great  palm  of  his  Creator  he  was  led  and  sustained 
through  the  time  that  tried  men's  souls  as  they  had  never  been  tried  before 
or  since  in  the  history  of  this  country.  So  firm  was  his  faith  in  individual 
right,  that  in  one  of  his  ethical  addresses  speaking  of  conduct  he  said,  "if 
the  end  brings  me  out  wrong  ten  angels  swearing  I  was  right  would  make 
no  difference.  With  these  basic  and  exalted  standards  of  his  obligations  to 
Right  and  Country's  concept,  he  gravely  and  courageously  assumed  the 
duties  of  ours  and  his  high  office.  With  government  on  such  a  plane,  in 
such  hands,  need  any  citizen  of  this  or  any  other  country  or  at  any  time, 
fear  for  its  safety? 

His  religion  was  fundamental'  in  spirit  and  concepts,  so  true  and  practical 
for  his  time  as  to  place  his  belief  and  interpretation  above  question. 

His  itinerary  to  Washington  was  filled  with  menace  and  danger  instead 
of  ovation;  he  had  to  reach  his  destination  through  strategy  to  avoid  conflict 
and  probable  death.  At  the  Capitol  he  was  confronted  with  coldness,  indif- 
ference, and  over  all  a  black  pall  of  treason;  unprepossessing  at  first  impres- 
sion, and  with  a  limited  acquaintance  of  the  social  as  well  as  the  diplomatic 
usages  in  official  circles,  he  entered  upon  his  executive  duties  tired,  worried 
yet  "grand,  gloomy  and  peculiar,  a  sceptered  hermit,  wrapped  in  the  soli- 
tude of  his  own  originality1';  he  knew  "that  as  his  heart  was  right,  he  had 
the  strength  of  ten  men,"  and  his  cause  must  win. 


To  Abraham  Lincoln  there  was  no  North,  no  South,  no  white,  no  black, 
no  bond  but  all  free;  no  West,  no  East,  only  one  country  and  one  flag,  the 
everlasting  emblem  of  liberty  in  One  Union.  Employing  the  awe-inspiring 
words  of  General  James  A.  Garfield  quoted  from  scripture  to  quell  the  riot' 
ing  mob  in  New  York  after  the  assassination  of  Lincoln,  which  could  well 
be  applied  at  the  beginning  of  Lincoln's  administration: 

"Clouds  and  darkness  are  around  about  him.  His  pavilion  is  dark 
waters  and  thick  clouds  of  the  skies.  Justice  and  Judgment  are 
the  establishment  of  his  throne.  Mercy  and  Truth  shall  go  before 
his  face;  fellow  citizens,  God  reigns  and  the  government  at  Wash- 
ington still  lives." 

To  Lincoln  it  must  live;  in  no  arc  of  the  clouded  horizon  was  there  light. 
The  army  and  supplies  had  been  dissipated  by  a  designing  Secretary  of 
War;  the  navy  sent  to  distant  waters  or  to  the  bottom;  the  treasury  looted; 
the  supreme  court  tainted  with  blackest  treason;  messenger  boys  and  tele' 
graph  keymen  bought  or  polluted  by  the  emissaries  of  those  plotting  dis- 
union; assassination  hung  over  him  and  treason  lured  him  to  its  lair;  pitfalh 
were  prepared  for  him  everywhere  by  the  socalled  commissioners,  commit- 
tees, and  emissaries;  these  were  presented  to  him  in  every  conceivable  guise, 
in  one's  and  two's  and  three's  and  in  throngs;  they  came  from  everywhere 
they  came  on  many  missions;  from  already  seceded  states,  and  others  plot- 
ting treason;  from  timid  cities  and  wavering  clergy;  their  plans,  pleas  and 
intrigues  were  as  varied  as  their  egos;  poor  Lincoln  had  to  penetrate  their 
various  guises,  seek  their  ulteriors,  lest  he  be  tripped  up  and  be  found  giving 
encouragement  to  the  enemy.  New  pages  of  history  were  being  rapidly 
written  and  as  quickly  blotted  by  eager  treason's  intrigues  while  Lincoln's 
name  was  growing  more  luminous  at  the  top.  Before  the  eyes  of  the 
watching  world,  in  the  hearts  of  his  trusting  country-men  he  was  holding 
the  trembling  pillars  of  a  new  nation's  destiny  and  making  a  new  world's 
history. 

No  man  ever  had  such  responsibilities  laid  on  head  and  heart  and  hand; 
he  had  fought  the  ambushed  Indian  on  the  frontier  and  knew  some  of  the 
cunning  and  treachery  of  savages;  now  he  had  educated  traitors  conniving 

10 


against  him;  here  was  the  plotting  of  former  United  States  senators  and 
representatives;  defeated  politicians  of  his  own  party,  the  intrigue  of  traitors 
schooled  in  politique,  dyed  in  treason  and  determined  on  secession  and  plot- 
ting in  word  and  secret  deed  the  destruction  of  the  Union.  The  South 
had  arrogated  to  itself  the  entire  national  domain  in  which  to  institute 
slavery;  Lincoln  had  sacredly  sworn  to  preserve  the  Union,  with  slavery  if 
so  possible,  without  it,  if  it  must  so  be. 

During  the  campaign  and  election  the  socalled  abolition  party  used 
Lincoln's  statement  that  a  nation  could  not  survive  half  slave  and  half  free, 
and  thus  appealed  to  the  higher  promptings  of  humanity  for  support;  it 
was  not  Lincoln's  intention  as  president  to  ever  employ  either  his  long 
cherished  sentiments,  or  his  new  authority  to  free  the  slaves  in  the  South, 
as  he  so  earnestly  wrote  in  1862  in  open  letter  to  the  obstreperous  and 
afterward  repentant  Horace  Greeley,  "My  paramount  object  in  this  struggle 
is  to  save  the  Union:  if  I  could  save  the  Union  without  freeing  the  slaves 
I  would  do  it;  and  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  all  the  slaves  I  would  do  it; 
and  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  some  and  leaving  others  alone  I  would  also 
do  that,  I  shall  do  less  whenever  I  shall  believe  doing  more  will  help  the 
cause,11  making  it  very  clear  even  by  reiteration  that  all  his  soul's  desire 
was  to  save  the  Union.  As  for  Lincoln,  then,  slavery  as  an  institution  of 
the  South  might  have  continued  to  exist  until  the  slower  but  as  sure  com- 
pulsions  of  a  higher  humanity  than  the  South  was  then  capable  of  con' 
ceiving,  would  have  wiped  it  off  the  face  of  this  country.  Lincoln's  supreme 
object  was  to  save  the  Union;  the  single  selfish  motive  of  the  South  was  to 
destroy  the  Union.  "It  is  the  hatred  of  small  minds  ignorant  of  the  world's 
great  truths  that  hinder  its  progress." 

Abraham  Lincoln  had  the  seeming,  we  will  say  Divine,  perspicacity  to 
know  and  realize  this;  foresight  is  one  of  the  greatest  evidences  of  racial 
supremacy.  When  Abraham  Lincoln  in  his  first  inaugural  said,  addressing 
himself  to  the  South,  "in  your  hands  my  dissatisfied  fellow-countrymen  and 
not  in  mine  is  the  momentous  issue  of  the  civil  war;  the  government  will 
not  assail  you;  you  have  no  oath  registered  in  Heaven  to  destroy  the  Union, 
while  I  have  a  most  solemn  one  to  preserve,  protect  and  defend  it."  He 
thus  clearly  interpreted  and  declared  to  the  South  his  attitude  to  duty  and 

11 


theirs  to  the  enormous  one  of  righteous  citizenship  and  the  responsibility 
of  civil  war  that  was  alone  with  them.  That  inaugural  address  is  in  itself 
a  Magna  Charta  without  an  equal  in  English  literature;  if  success  had  not 
crowned  Lincoln's  pleadings  and  efforts  in  other  courts,  that  address  would 
have  exalted  him  before  the  tribunal  of  justice,  scholars,  statesmen  and 
nations,  and  crowned  him  premier  of  all  the  great  in  history.  Still,  eighty 
armed  men  in  citizens1  clothes,  ""plain  clothes  men"  had  to  stand  around  him 
during  that  address  to  shield  him  from  bodily  harm  from  that  alleged  south- 
ern chivalry  he  was  so  earnestly  admonishing  to  peace  and  civic  righteous- 
ness. From  the  arena  of  such  an  inauguration  he  was  hastened  along  a 
line  of  thoroughly  equipped  military  with  loaded  guns,  ostensibly  for  the 
pomp  of  parade,  but  more  exactly  for  the  serious  protection  of  the  President 
from  the  assassin  then  already  incubating  in  that  throng;  thus  he  was  in- 
gloriously  guided  to  the  gloomy  executive  chamber  to  assume  the  responsi- 
bilities of  the  government  of  a  country  distracted  by  internal  dissensions  on 
the  great  question  then  agitating  not  only  this  country  but  humanity,  the 
question  of  human  slavery,  the  question  whether  a  Nation  conceived  in 
liberty  and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal  should 
survive  or  perish  from  off  the  face  of  the  earth. 

In  the  entire  history  of  the  world,  pagan  and  christian,  ancient  and 
modern,  the  deeds  and  character  of  Abraham  Lincoln  stand  out  so  eminently 
exalted,  so  conspicuous  by  his  conscientious  consecration  to  duty,  to  human- 
ity, that  there  is  no  example,  no  parallel  by  which  to  compare  him. 

If  prescience  and  perspicacity  were  ever  exemplified  at  the  portals  of 
an  impending  and  tragic  epoch,  Abraham  Lincoln  believed  and  lived  the 
things  before  and  during  the  great  Civil  contest  that  worked  out  a  glorious 
culmination  either  through  a  Divine  directory  or  the  superlative  judgment 
of  a  great  mind,  a  superman;  a  mind  that  amid  its  primitive  environment  in 
childhood,  adolescence  and  maturity,  displayed  a  supreme  quality  that  com- 
pelled recognition  then  and  since,  and  amply  merits  all  the  admiration  we 
feebly  bestow  on  these  occasions. 

Abraham  Lincoln  in  his  humble  birth  and  early  self-acquired  education 
and  later  successful  achievements  embodies  much  of  the  quality  we  admire 

12 


as  American;  he  is  not  only  our  American  ideal,  but  through  his  awful 
trials  and  his  glorious  triumphs  and  his  final  martyrdom  he  has  rightfully 
become  our  American  idol! 

What  strange  mentor  led  him  to  books,  where  scholarship  was  un- 
known, colleges  mere  phantoms  and  the  public  school  unborn?  What 
spirit-pilot  directed  his  journey  down  the  Ohio,  "the  River  of  Peace,1'  down 
the  Mississippi  to  New  Orleans  where  he  saw  slaves,  humans  hewn  in  ebony, 
sold  to  the  highest  bidder;  saw  the  sacred  ties  of  family  sundered  by  sneers 
and  jests  and  cruel  bargainings;  saw  sisters  sold  to  the  "rice  swamps  dark 
and  lone,"  and  defiant  brothers  beaten  to  submission  by  the  overseer's  lash? 
Though  only  eighteen  years  old  at  the  time  it  awakened  in  him  the  threat, 
may  we  say  prophecy?  that,  "if  I  ever  get  a  chance  at  that  accursed  thing,1' 
in  provincial  blasphemy,  he  said,  "by  gad  I'll  hit  it  hard,"  and  he  did;  with 
the  bludgeon  of  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  January  first  1863  he 
hit  it  the  fatal  blow,  and  four  million  slaves  were  free  and  the  Union  saved. 

What  school  of  ethics  in  that  wild  frontier  directed  his  conduct  to  the 
merited  title  accorded  him  by  friend  and  foe  of  "Honest  old  Abe?"  Roose- 
velt's boastful  "square  deal"  of  today,  is  only  the  far  and  dim  echo  of 
Lincoln's  pioneer  "fair  play"  of  half  a  century  ago 

To  lessen  the  sufferings  that  war  begets,  Lincoln  led  the  world.  Not 
often  is  his  name  associated  with  the  world-wide  humane  fundamentals  of 
the  Red  Cross;  such  service  is  not  within  spirit  or  deed,  neither  is  it  denied 
politicians  or  statesmen. 

Abraham  Lincoln's  innate  humanity  radiated  to  every  useful  sphere 
of  man's  endeavor;  he  would  make  a  rose  grow  where  '  war's  thistles 
had  thrived.  That  he  would  rescue  a  cruelly  winged  bird  or  spend 
weary  nights  with  wounded  soldiers,  foe  or  friend;  prepare  a  military  order 
as  radiant  as  the  Red  Cross  and  as  enduring  as  the  Rock  of  Ages;  hence, 
his  title  and  recognition  as  primate  of  the  fundamentals  of  the  now  world- 
wide Red  Cross'  sacred  service:  he  merits  and  deserves  a  place  in  the  com- 
pany of  Him  who  went  about  the  Syrian  hills  doing  good  and  casting  evil 
out.  The  atrocities  that  prevailed  in  the  war  between  France  and  Austria 
in  1859  were  brought  to  light  after  the  battle  of  Solferino,  by  a  Swiss  doctor, 

13 


Henry  Durant;  this  doctor  was  endeavoring  to  awaken  interest  in  Europe 
that  would  ameliorate  conditions  of  war  and  it  is  claimed  was  the  initial 
author  of  the  now  famous  Red  Cross  movement;  the  Red  Cross  Association 
was  founded  in  Geneva,  Switzerland  in  1864.  Lincoln  visited  Petersburgh, 
Va.,  after  that  unfortunate  battle  June,  1864,  walking  over  the  bloody  field 
he  came  upon  the  doctors  in  their  improvised  hospital  tents  or  under  God's 
canopy;  he  stopped  a  moment  to  view  their  skilled  and  bloody  work;  he 
saw  bleeding  wounds  kindly  staunched;  he  grieved  to  see  the  quivering 
arms  and  legs  in  grewsome  piles,  some  still  moving  in  the  reflexes  of  their 
awful  wounds;  he  heard  the  cries  and  groans  of  the  wounded  waiting,  and 
saw  the  pallor  of  shock  and  death  of  the  dying;  he  saw  the  wist  for  mother 
in  their  paling  eyes;  his  great  heart  was  moved  and  he  exclaimed  "and  this 
is  war,  the  trade  of  barbarism!"  then  turning  to  his  staff  surrounding  him, 
he  said  "gentlemen  is  there  no  way  this  awful  thing  can  be  stopped?"  His 
great  heart  was  moved  he  returned  to  the  White  house,  his  Golgotha  to 
rest,  but  instead  he  wrestled  with  frightful  dreams  and  grewsome  visions 
of  the  battlefields  and  hospitals:  he  arose  and  walked  the  floor  in  sorrow 
and  deep  study;  he  sat  at  his  desk  and  formulated  his  great  earnest  plea 
and  order  for  the  amelioration  of  conditions  of  battle  and  their  awful  after' 
math;  fully  realizing  the  importance  of  such  a  paper  at  the  tribunal  of  the 
then  troubled  world  he  engaged  Francis  Lieber,  Dean  of  Law  at  Columbia 
University,  New  York,  to  arrange  his  deep  and  troubled  thoughts  into  legal 
and  forceful  phrases  and  composition;  this  was  then  issued  as  "General 
orders"  to  all  commanding  officers  urging  their  aid  for  the  early  amelioration 
of  conditions  of  wounded  and  suffering  during  and  after  all  battles.  These 
"orders"  exercised  a  powerful  influence  upon  the  entire  world;  they  were 
later  the  basis  of  the  work  of  the  Conference  of  Brussels  in  1874,  and 
through  this  conference  became  the  fundamental  text  of  the  convention 
concerning  the  laws  of  war  adopted  by  the  Hague  Conference  of  1900  and 
that  was  perfected  and  adopted  in  1907.  This  code  of  Abraham  Lincoln's 
antedated  the  creation  of  the  Red  Cross  organization  of  the  world,  as  one 
of  the  great  humanities,  and  proves  again  and  anew  his  remarkable  per- 
spicacity, and  his  unerring  and  early  mercy  in  all  threatening  or  present 
afflictions;  he  desired  to  be  not  only  the  emancipator  but  the  savior  of  his 
fellow  men.     The  many  little  stories  told  of  his  tender-heartedness  to  birds 

14 


and  animals,  his  humanity,  his  affection  for  children,  all  bespeak  for  him 
the  great  "charity"  for  which  he  is  so  universally  beloved;  he  had  more  just 
and  generous  pardons  in  his  great  heart  than  any  ruler,  ever  known  and  gave 
them  discreetly. 

Another  example  of  Lincoln's  reliance  and  foresight  rarely  recognized  or 
spoken  of,  for  which  he  hardly  receives  the  credit  it  deserves  and  which 
still  affects  the  educators  and  the  education  of  our  youth,  is,  for  the  form 
of  education  first  called  "agricultural,11  the  schools  first  so  promulgated  as 
"State  schools11  for  the  industrial  masses,  but  which  have  since  become  the 
great  State  Universities,  were  only  made  possible  as  early  as  they  were  by 
Lincoln's  courageous  and  erudite  interpretation  of  the  constitution  and  his 
signing  the  law  that  had  been  passed  under  the  preceding  administrations 
of  Presidents  Taylor  and  Buchanan,  both  acknowledged  superior  constitu- 
tional interpreters,  but  which  neither  of  these  preceding  presidents  had  the 
understanding,  the  faith,  or  the  courage  to  interpret  so  they  could  or  would 
sign  the  law.  That  law  gave  the  vast  areas  of  land  whose  accumulated 
wealth  has  made  the  State  Universities  of  the  Great  West  the  proud  institu- 
tions  of  their  respective  communities;  the  president  of  the  University  of 
Illinois  characterized  the  grant  as  the  most  opulent,  eloquent,  and 
"grandiose11  endowment  ever  made  in  the  history  of  education11;  proving 
proud  monuments  in  these  states;  equally  they  should  be  loud  proclaimers 
of  Abraham  Lincoln's  intuition  and  his  innate  love  of  learning,  the  desired 
thing  that  was  denied  him,  but  that  he  made  possible  to  us  by  his  untiring 
study  and  fundamental  knowledge  of  the  constitution,  in  behalf  of  others. 
Further  he  had  such  an  exalted  appreciation  of  Science,  that  he  successfully 
urged  Congress  in  1863  to  enact  a  measure  that  established  the  National 
Academy  of  Science,  the  first  scientific  association  in  history  ever  invoked 
to  cope  against  shot  and  shell  and  gas  and  internal  combustion,  to  defeat 
an  enemy. 

A  greater  fundamental  study  of  constitutional  as  well  as  international 
law  in  which  subsequent  history  affirms  again  his  force  and  accuracy,  was  in 
the  so-called  "Trent  affair11;  the  stopping  of  the  English  cruiser  Trent  and 
the  removal  therefrom  of  the  persons  of  the  two  confederate  commissioners, 
Mason  and  Slidell,  and  their  return  to  this  country  against  their  protests 

15 


and  the  remonstrances  of  the  English  government;  this  was  a  critical  and 
crucial  period  in  the  history  of  the  Civil  war  and  the  Nation.  England 
made  vehement  and  very  serious  protest  against  the  act,  going  so  far  as  to 
send  an  armed  fleet  near  the  harbor  of  New  York;  a  crisis  was  pending; 
to  avoid  a  conflict  just  at  that  critical  period,  the  commissioners  were  re- 
leased, but  the  "Right  of  Seizure1'  was  maintained  by  Lincoln  and  our  right 
and  protest  was  so  filed  and  remained  a  subject  of  international  dispute  until 
1909  when  through  an  enactment  by  a  Maritime  tribunal  in  which  ten  of 
the  leading  maritime  powers  of  the  world  participated,  the  contention  of 
the  United  States  delegates  was  sustained,  Lincoln's  long  suspended  and 
much  discussed  claim  to  the  "right  of  seizure11  prevailed,  and  Lincoln  the 
"rail-splitter,11  Lincoln  the  "Illinois  giant,11  had  again  confounded  the  "wise 
men  of  the  East11  and  proved  an  innate  perspicacity  and  patriotism  far 
above  his  contemporaries.  Thus  five  great  epoch-making  questions  were 
met  and  adjusted  then  or  since  to  the  World's  and  Time's  approval,  in 
all  of  which  Lincoln  led  nobly:  the  Emancipation  proclamation,  liberty's 
weapon;  the  codification  and  issuing  as  "General  orders11  by  the  Com- 
mander in  Chief  of  the  Armies  and  Navies.  Instructions  and  rules  for  the 
humane  guidance  of  armies  and  navies  in  the  field,  later  sanctioned  and 
adopted  for  the  world's  service  by  the  Red  Cross  at  the  Hague  Confer- 
ence. The  Land  Grant  act  that  made  possible  the  great  educational  move- 
ment of  the  western  states.  Lincoln's  persistence  in  the  "right  of  seizure" 
of  Commissioners  Mason  and  Slidell  as  contrabands  of  war  in  the  Trent 
affair.  A  creed  and  a  religion  "with  malice  toward  none"  the  world  can 
adopt  for  universal  conduct,  all  stupendous  world's  history-epoch-making 
subjects,  any  one  of  which  singly,  would  amply  crown  any  ordinary 
individual's  lifetime  and  be  a  proud  legacy  to  leave  family  and  history. 

It  is  deplored  that  writers  and  speakers  have  so  complacently  permitted 
the  ugly  impress  of  the  early  vicious  cartoonist  as  to  Lincoln's  face  and 
form  to  prevail  without  greater  protest;  his  political  enemies  in  campaigns 
remained  passive,  while  his  secession  foes  exaggerated  form  and  feature 
to  their  own  base  soul's  delight;  horns  and  cloven  hoofs  were  given  him 
in  the  South  and  their  preponderating  illiterates  and  impressionable  "poor 
trash"  believed  it;  their  ribald  artists  and  not  nature  gave  him  the  "shaggy 

16 


brow"  and  "bearded  base,"  the  "corded  hands"  and  "gnarled  face."  Lon- 
don's jesting  journal  "Puck,"  maligned  and  lampooned  poor  Lincoln  with 
ecstatic  envy,  but  later  craved  for  it  through  the  press  and  page,  as  craven 
as  words  could,  the  pardon  of  the  world. 

It  was  my  privilege  to  have  seen  Lincoln,  but  only  in  the  repose  of 
death,  when  life's  fitful  fever  was  over;  it  was  after  he  had  crossed  the 
valleys  and  mountains,  and  the  roll  of  muffled  drum  and  toll  of  bell  had 
come  to  the  lakes  and  the  great  bosom  of  the  West;  it  was  at  Cleveland, 
Ohio,  where  his  body  lay  in  regal  state,  in  that  fair  city's  central  square; 
sombre  clouds  in  sadness  veiled  the  sky;  from  morn  till  night  mist  filled 
the  air  and  deeper  mist  flowed  in  myriad  eyes  that  passed  four  abreast, 
two  on  each  side  of  the  bier  all  day  long;  stern  guards  allowed  no  linger- 
ing over  the  placid  face  and  massive  form.  It  was  said  Old  Glory  wrapped 
the  casket  and  that  roses  and  laurel  wreathed  the  head  and  that  lilies  lay 
in  abundance  at  his  feet;  but  I  saw  only  the  classic  mould  of  brow  and 
face,  and  cherish  this  only;  it  accords  so  well  with  that  which  sculptor 
Leonard  Volk  preserved  in  the  death-mask,  that  is  recognized  by  artists 
and  sculptors  as  a  model  face,  and  is  the  copy  used  by  all.  That  this 
image  lingers  with  me  is  a  pleasure  and  is  beautiful,  impressive  and  inspir- 
ing; it  lends  itself  to  the  character  that  shone  and  triumphed  through  it, 
and  will  live  in  enduring  bronze  and  marble  when  the  cartoonist's  vile 
copy,  with  its  maker,  will  have  passed  to  merited  oblivion. 

Here  lay  my  Father  Abraham  Lincoln.  I  was  his  spared  sacrifice  offer- 
ing; I  had  gone  at  my  country's  call  with  four  brothers,  five  of  one  family, 
all  a  patriotic  mother's  dedication  at  their  birth,  all  a  father's  offering  at 
his  country's  call.  Would  my  emotions  at  that  majestic  presence  and  at 
that  sacred  bier  be  less  than  earnest  offering  of  Life  and  service? 

The  unimpeachable  camera  has  preserved  his  features,  and  portrays 
him  as  well  favored  as  men  of  his  age,  in  any  calling,  without  accessories 
of  regalia  and  environment;  the  photograph  at  the  age  of  35  or  40  owned 
by  his  son,  Robert  T.  Lincoln,  certainly  is  without  defect  in  form  or  line; 
another  photograph  owned  by  C.  F.  Gunther  of  Chicago  is  described  by 
no  other  words  than  beautiful,  and   any  man  not  a  dilletante  would  be 

17 


proud  to  wear  it.  Either  makes  him  a  "peasant  prince,  a  masterpiece  of 
God."  The  statue  of  Abraham  Lincoln  by  Saint  Gaudens  in  Lincoln 
Park,  Chicago,  gives  him  a  shapely  head  and  form;  that  by  Weinman  in 
Boston,  Mass.,  and  its  replica  in  Madison,  Wisconsin,  are  things  of  beauty 
and  grandeur  to  cherish  forever;  in  these  statues  it  would  seem  as  though 
the  serious  and  perplexed  sculptors  had  laid  aside  their  moulding  tools, 
their  rules  and  calipers,  and  let  their  chisels  be  guided  by  the  gods,  while 
they  solved  a  figure  of  majestic  loveliness,  standing  beneath  Heaven's  eter- 
nal sun  and  on  Liberty's  eternal  pedestal,  memorials  of  both,  and  worthy 
tribute  to  the  subject. 

The  mold  of  Lincoln's  hand  forms  a  plaster  cast  holding  a  humble 
broomstick  instead  of  a  classic  cestus,  and  is  regarded  by  anatomists  and 
artists  as  a  model  hand  of  a  man  or  Marathon,  a  classic  in  every  curve 
and  angle;  its  replica  is  in  nearly  every  artist's  studio  for  copy  and  it  is  not 
"knotty,  gaunt  or  gnarled." 

Let  us  forget  Lincoln  cartooned  by  southern  enemies  and  lampooned 
by  envious  England;  he  was  and  to  us  is  beautiful;  "Honest  old  Abe"  to 
us  and  our  successors  is  our  physical,  intellectual  and  ethical  idol;  a  man 
without  a  model  and  without  a  self;  as  stern  Edwin  Stanton,  his  Secretary 
of  War,  said  when  he  saw  the  last  quiver  leave  his  wounded  body,  "Now 
he  belongs  to  the  ages." 

But  first  he  belongs  to  us,  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic,  because 
he  was  our  "Commander-in-Chief"  and  because  he  was  OUR  "Father 
Abraham"  and  we  were  his  "Boys  in  Blue";  we  came  at  his  call,  five  times 
three-hundred-thousand  strong;  "we  rallied  from  the  hillside,  we  gathered 
from  the  plain,  shouting  the  battle  cry  of  freedom,"  and  with  him  freed 
a  race  and  saved  the  Union;  he  belongs  to  us,  the  Grand  Army  of  the 
Republic,  and  after  us  he  belongs  in  the 

CABINET  OF  THE  IMMORTALS. 


18 


ADDRESS  BY  PRESIDENT  LINCOLN 

At  the  Dedication  of 

THE  GETTYSBURG  NATIONAL  CEMETERY 

November  19,  1863 

Four  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought 
forth  on  this  continent,  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  liberty, 
and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created 
equal. 

Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether 
that  nation,  or  any  other  nation  so  conceived  and  so  dedi- 
cated can  long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle- 
field of  that  war.  We  have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion 
of  that  field,  as  a  final  resting  place  for  those  who  here 
gave  their  lives  that  that  nation  might  live.  It  is  altogether 
fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do  this. 

But,  in  a  larger  sense,  we  can  not  dedicate — we  can  not 
consecrate — we  can  not  hallow — this  ground.  The  brave 
men,  living  and  dead — who  struggled  here,  have  conse- 
crated it,  far  above  our  poor  power  to  add  or  detract. 

The  world  will  little  note,  nor  long  remember  what  we 
say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It  is 
for  us  the  living,  rather  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the  un- 
finished work  which  they  who  fought  here  have  thus  far 
so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated 
to  the  great  task  remaining  before  us — that  from  these 
honored  dead  we  take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause 
for  which  they  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion — 
that  we  here  highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not  have 
died  in  vain — that  this  nation,  under  God,  shall  have  a  new 
birth  of  freedom — and  that  government  of  the  people  by  the 
people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth. 


Chronology  of  Lincoln's  Life 


1806 — Marriage  of  Thomas  Lincoln  and  Nancy  Hanks,  June  12, 

Washington   County,   Kentucky. 
1809 — Born  Feb.   12,  Hardin   (now  La  Rue)   County,  Kentucky. 
1816 — Family   removed  to   Perry   County,   Indiana. 
1818 — Death    of  Abraham's   mother,   Nancy    Hanks   Lincoln. 
1819 — Second  marriage  of  Thomas  Lincoln;  married  Sally  Bush 

Johnson,    Dec.    2,   at   Elizabethtown,   Kentucky. 
1830 — Lincoln    family    removed    to    Illinois,    locating    in    Macon 

County. 
1831 — Abraham   located   at  New   Salem. 
1832 — Abraham  a  Captain  in  the   Black   Hawk  War. 
183  3 — Appointed   postmaster   at  New   Salem. 
1834 — Abraham  a  Surveyor.     First  election  to  the  Legislature. 
1835 — Love   romance  with   Anne   Rutledge. 
1836 — Second   election   to   the  Legislature. 
1837 — Licensed  to  practice  law. 
1838 — Third  election  to  the  Legislature. 
1840 — Presidential  Elector  on   Harrison  ticket.     Fourth   election 

to  the  Legislature. 
1842 — Married   Nov.   4  to  Mary  Todd.     "Duel"  with   General 

Shields. 
1843— Birth  of  Robert  Todd  Lincoln,  Aug.   1. 
1846 — Elected    to    Congress.      Birth    of    Edward    Baker    Lincoln, 

March  10. 
1848 — Delegate  to  the  Philadelphia  National  Convention. 
1850 — Birth  of  William  Wallace  Lincoln,   Dec.    2. 
1853 — Birth   of  Thomas  Lincoln,   April   4. 
1856 — Assists  in   formation   of   Republican   party. 
1858 — Joint  debate  with  Stephen  A.  Douglas.      Defeated  for  the 

United    States   Senate. 
1860 — Nominated   and   elected   to   the   Presidency. 
1861 — Inaugurated  as  President,  March   4. 
1863 — Issued   Emancipation   Proclamation. 
1864 — Reelected  to  the  Presidency. 
1865 — Assassinated  by  J.  Wilkes  Booth,  April   14.      Died  April 

15.      Remains  interred  at  Springfield,  111.,  May   4. 


The 
Grand  Army  of  the  Republic 

"No  child  can  be  born  into  it ;  no  procla- 
mation of  President,  edict  of  King  or 
Czar  can  command  admission ;  no  Univer- 
sity or  institution  of  learning  can  issue  a 
diploma  authorizing  its  holder  to  enter ; 
no  act  of  Congress  or  Parliament  secures 
recognition ;  the  wealth  of  a  Vanderbilt 
cannot  purchase  the  position ;  its  doors 
swing  open  only  upon  the  presentation  of 
a  bit  of  paper,  torn,  worn,  begrimed  it  may 
be,  which  certifies  to  an  Honorable  dis- 
charge from  the  Armies  or  Navies  of  the 
Nation  during  the  war  against  the  Rebel- 
lion, "  and,  unlike  any  other  Association, 
no  "new  blood"  can  come  in ;  there  are  no 
growing  ranks  from  which  recruits  can  be 
drawn  into  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Re- 
public. With  the  consummation  of  Peace 
through  Victory  its  rolls  were  closed  for- 
ever. 


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